Chaotic relaxation
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This circuit is one of the ones I'm most pleased with, as it's a design that I've come up with from a pair of simple relaxation oscillators that is capable of producing very complex sounds. Each oscillator is modulating the others pulse width, and there are two possibilities for disrupting the circuit with crystal diode clipping, the input signal is fed into the circuit and there is a breakout jumper so multiple of these modules can be chained for more complex feedback. I haven't tried much of this yet.
It slightly bends the variscan synthesis rules in that it works in an interesting way without a crystal in the circuit. This makes it more forgiving in a live setup, but I think it does exhibit differences between different semiconducting minerals when they are used.
There is a missing resistor in the schematic, 670 ohms between the output and zero volts to reduce the output to sit within the 1V range to match the others (it's too hot for the low pass gate otherwise).
Licenced under the CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2 – Strongly Reciprocal
Inputs
- Choice of two locations for a crystal diode: X1 limits the buffering like a soft clipper (needs connecting to work when not in use) and X2 hard clips the input to the first oscillator.
- CV input
- Audio input feeds into the circuit.
- Breakout location to chain multiple chaotic relaxation oscillators together.
Controls
- OSC 1 pitch
- OSC 2 pitch
Outputs
- Audio signal
Schematic
PCB layout
